AI Index 2018: The AI Boom is Worldwide and Accelerating

The rate of progress in the field of artificial intelligence is one of the most hotly contested aspects of the ongoing boom in teaching computers and robots how to see the world, make sense of it, and eventually perform complex tasks both in the physical realm and the virtual one. And just how fast the industry is moving, and to what end, is typically measured not just by actual product advancements and research milestones, but also by the prognostications and voiced concerns of AI leaders, futurists, academics, economists, and policymakers. AI is going to change the world — but how and when are still open questions.

Finding from a group of experts were published last week inthe second annual AI Index, assembled by experts from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the nonprofit OpenAI, and the Partnership on AI industry consortium, among others. The goal is to measure the field’s progress using hard data and to try and make sense of that progress as it relates to thorny subjects like workplace automation and the overarching quest for artificial general intelligence, or the type of intelligence that could let a machine perform any task a human could.

“There is no AI story without global perspective. The 2017 report was heavily skewed towards North American activities. This reflected a limited number of global partnerships, not an intrinsic bias,” reads the 2018 report’s introduction. “This year, we begin to close the global gap. We recognize that there is a long journey ahead — one that involves collaboration and outside participation — to make this report truly comprehensive.”

In that spirit of global analysis, the second AI Index report finds that commercial and research work in AI, as well as funding, is exploding pretty much everywhere on the planet. There’s an especially high concentration in Europe and Asia, with China, Japan, and South Korea leading Eastern countries in AI research paper publication, university enrollment, and patent applications. In fact, Europe is the largest publisher of AI papers, with 28 percent of all AI-related publications last year. China is close behind with 25 percent, while North America is responsible for 17 percent.

Read the source article in The Verge.


2007 ORS 419A.108¹
Procedure for conflicts of interest

Whenever a member of a local citizen review board has a potential conflict of interest in a case being reviewed, the member shall declare to the local citizen review board the nature of the potential conflict prior to participating in the case review. The following apply as described:

(1) The declaration of the member shall be recorded in the official records of the board.

(2) If, in the judgment of the majority of the local board, the potential conflict of interest may prevent the member from fairly and objectively reviewing the case, the local board may remove the member from participation in the review. [1993 c.33 §32]

1 Legislative Counsel Committee, CHAPTER 419A—Juvenile Code: General Provisions and Definitions, https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/419a.html (2007) (last accessed Feb. 12, 2009).


Courses / Programming C++

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Programming C++

Programming C++

C++ is the general purpose programming language which supports Object Oriented Concepts. Every C application can be upgraded in C++ language using these Object Oriented Concepts. Basically, C++ is the superset of the C language. C++ is widely used to write various applications like UNIX, Windows, Linux, and many more.

C++ is considered as an entry point for software development World. It is for those who want to build their programming concepts very strong or already have strong concepts. Students who are looking forward to enter into system programming, this course will be very beneficial for them. The syllabus for this course is designed keeping in mind the requirements of the IT companies.

The main concept of our training program is to develop the programs with classes and objects. C applications can be changed to C++ with the help of classes and adding Object Oriented Concepts. Developing application using C++ language is more optimized and efficient than C.

Along with the C++ course, we also cover the basics of Data Structure, Arrays, Templates, and Vectors, Object-Oriented Programming, String Functions.etc. Using a String Class, Stacks, Queues, and Trees, Recursion and Searching, Sorting, Pointers, enum, and Structures, Loops, Strings and Screen I/O and the list continues.


Statement from SSRC President Alondra Nelson

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) stands with fellow social science organizations in opposition to the administration’s intention of including a question related to citizenship status in the 2020 census, and echoes their concerns that a citizenship question will cause many individuals not to respond to the census or to do so inaccurately.

Accurate US census data informs rigorous social science research that in turn empowers communities and civic leaders at all levels of government to make more-informed policy decisions. Inaccuracies within the census can affect everyone in this country through future decisions in education, transportation, public health, public safety, social services, economic investment by the private sector, and more. The deep concern of the SSRC over inclusion of a question related to citizenship stems from the Council’s long history of research and writings on the conduct of the census, as well as the fact that including an untested question in the 2020 census belies the tenets of rigorous social science.

An accurate census is mandated in Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution, the guiding document that gives Congress the power to determine how each census is conducted. Members of Congress who share our concern are already putting forth legislation to bar the inclusion of a citizenship question. We urge Congress to work together to pass legislation strengthening the accuracy of the 2020 census data so fundamental to many sectors of society.

The SSRC rejects inclusion of a citizenship question, not only for its potential impact on the bedrock role accurate US census data fulfills in rigorous social science research—essential to fostering understanding and improving human well-being—but also for the possible adverse effects inaccurate data will have on the nation’s security, economy, and our democracy itself.

Alondra Nelson
Social Science Research Council


Niclas photo

Niclas Kolm

Visa sidan på svenska
Works at Department of Zoology
Telephone 08-16 40 50
Visiting address Svante Arrheniusväg 18 B
Room D 513
Postal address Zoologiska institutionen: Etologi 106 91 Stockholm

About me

I am an evolutionary biologist with broad interests in life histories, sexual selection, speciation, and animal behavior. My main interest lie in brain evolution and the link between variation in brain morphology and behaviour. I study this in a variety of taxa (Cichlids, Pipefishes and Seahorses, Birds, Pinnipeds, Cetaceans, Salmonids, Poeciliids) using phylogenetic comparative analysis and laboratory experiments.

Currently, most of the work in my group builds on four systems:

We have a database with data on brain size and various aspects of life history and behaviour for over 20000 specimens from over 4500 species. We use this data to perform phylogenetic comparative analyses to test various hypotheses in a macroevolutionary framework. Currently this is mainly a collaboration between my group, Wouter van der Bijl, Andrew Iwaniuk and Masahito Tsuboi but many other important collaborators have helped in this project.

We use our recently developed guppy selection lines with 14 % difference in brain size to perform experimental tests of several hypotheses concerning brain evolution and the link between brain morphology and physiology and behaviour. For this work, we have over 250 m2 of lab space with room for >4000 aquaria and six separate rooms for behavioural assays. This is a project with multiple collaborators, for instance Alexander Kotrschal (previously postdoc with me but now independent PI), Judith Mank, Michael Jennions, Pertti Panula, Alexei Maklakov, Björn Rogell, Pavel Nemec and Neus Visa.

Together with collaborators Hans Temrin, Laszlo Garamszegi, Eniko Kubinyi and Adam Miklosi we study brain and behaviour evolution both within and across breeds thus using the dog breeds as a long term selection experiment.

We use our recently developed guppy selection lines with > 15 % difference in schooling behaviour after three generations of selection. The aim here is to elucidate what changes in brain anatomy, cognition, other behaviours, life history and genetic architecture that occurs when 'a guppy becomes a herring'. This is a collaboration with David Sumpter, Kristiaan Pelckmans and Judith Mank.

Two recent papers:

Postdoctoral Researchers

Alberto Corral-Lopez

Zegni Triki

Annika Boussard

Stephanie Fong

Séverine Buechel (previous postdoc with me)

Alexander Kotrschal (previous postdoc with me)

James herbert-Read (previous postdoc with me)

Wouter van der Bijl (previous PhD-student with me)

Alberto Corral Lopez (previous PhD student and postdoc with me)

Alexander Hayward (previous postdoc with me)

Masahito Tsuboi (previous PhD-student with me)

Mirjam Amcoff (previous PhD-student with me)

Alejandro Gonzalez-Voyer (previous postdoc with me)

A selection from Stockholm University publication database
  • 2018. Séverine D. Buechel (et al.). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 285 (1871)

    It has become increasingly clear that a larger brain can confer cognitive benefits. Yet not all of the numerous aspects of cognition seem to be affected by brain size. Recent evidence suggests that some more basic forms of cognition, for instance colour vision, are not influenced by brain size. We therefore hypothesize that a larger brain is especially beneficial for distinct and gradually more complex aspects of cognition. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the performance of brain size selected female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in two distinct aspects of cognition that differ in cognitive complexity. In a standard reversal-learning test we first investigated basic learning ability with a colour discrimination test, then reversed the reward contingency to specifically test for cognitive flexibility. We found that large-brained females outperformed small-brained females in the reversed-learning part of the test but not in the colour discrimination part of the test. Large-brained individuals are hence cognitively more flexible, which probably yields fitness benefits, as they may adapt more quickly to social and/or ecological cognitive challenges. Our results also suggest that a larger brain becomes especially advantageous with increasing cognitive complexity. These findings corroborate the significance of brain size for cognitive evolution.

  • 2017. Alison E. Wright (et al.). Nature Communications 8

  • 2017. Alexander Kotrschal (et al.). Evolution 71 (12), 2942-2951

  • 2017. Alex Szorkovszky (et al.). Methods in Ecology and Evolution 8 (12), 1735-1744

    1. In social contexts, animal behaviour is often studied in terms of group-level characteristics. One clear example of this is the collective motion of animals in decentralized structures, such as bird flocks and fish schools. A major goal of research is to identify how group-level behaviours are shaped by the traits of individuals within them. Few methods exist to make these connections. Individual assessment is often limited, forcing alternatives such as fitting agent-based models to experimental data. 2. We provide a systematic experimental method for sorting animals according to socially relevant traits, without assaying them or even tagging them individually. Instead, they are repeatedly subjected to behavioural assays in groups, between which the group memberships are rearranged, in order to test the effect of many different combinations of individuals on a group-level property or feature. We analyse this method using a general model for the group feature, and simulate a variety of specific cases to track how individuals are sorted in each case. 3. We find that in the case where the members of a group contribute equally to the group feature, the sorting procedure increases the between-group behavioural variation well above what is expected for groups randomly sampled from a population. For a wide class of group feature models, the individual phenotypes are efficiently sorted across the groups and thus become available for further analysis on how individual properties affect group behaviour. We also show that the experimental data can be used to estimate the individual-level repeatability of the underlying traits. 4. Our method allows experimenters to find repeatable variation in social behaviours that cannot be assessed in solitary individuals. Furthermore, experiments in animal behaviour often focus on comparisons between groups randomly sampled from a population. Increasing the behavioural variation between groups increases statistical power for testing whether a group feature is related to other properties of groups or to their phenotypic composition. Sorting according to socially relevant traits is also beneficial in artificial selection experiments, and for testing correlations with other traits. Overall, the method provides a useful tool to study how individual properties influence social behaviour.

  • 2017. Alberto Corral-López (et al.). Science Advances 3 (3)

    Mate choice decisions are central in sexual selection theory aimed to understand how sexual traits evolve and their role in evolutionary diversification. We test the hypothesis that brain size and cognitive ability are important for accurate assessment of partner quality and that variation in brain size and cognitive ability underlies variation in mate choice. We compared sexual preference in guppy female lines selected for divergence in relative brain size, which we have previously shown to have substantial differences in cognitive ability. In a dichotomous choice test, large-brained and wild-type females showed strong preference for males with color traits that predict attractiveness in this species. In contrast, small-brained females showed no preference for males with these traits. In-depth analysis of optomotor response to color cues and gene expression of key opsins in the eye revealed that the observed differences were not due to differences in visual perception of color, indicating that differences in the ability to process indicators of attractiveness are responsible. We thus provide the first experimental support that individual variation in brain size affects mate choice decisions and conclude that differences in cognitive ability may be an important underlying mechanism behind variation in female mate choice.

  • 2016. Séverine D. Buechel (et al.). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 283 (1843)

  • 2016. Alexander Kotrschal, Niclas Kolm, Dustin J. Penn. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 283 (1826)

  • 2016. Wouter van der Bijl, Niclas Kolm. Bioessays 38 (6), 568-577

    A growing number of studies have found that large brains may help animals survive by avoiding predation. These studies provide an alternative explanation for existing correlative evidence for one of the dominant hypotheses regarding the evolution of brain size in animals, the social brain hypothesis (SBH). The SBH proposes that social complexity is a major evolutionary driver of large brains. However, if predation both directly selects for large brains and higher levels of sociality, correlations between sociality and brain size may be spurious. We argue that tests of the SBH should take direct effects of predation into account, either by explicitly including them in comparative analyses or by pin-pointing the brain-behavior-fitness pathway through which the SBH operates. Existing data and theory on social behavior can then be used to identify precise candidate mechanisms and formulate new testable predictions.

  • 2016. Masahito Tsuboi (et al.). Evolution 70 (7), 1559-1568

    Brain size is strongly associated with body size in all vertebrates. This relationship has been hypothesized to be an important constraint on adaptive brain size evolution. The essential assumption behind this idea is that static (i.e., within species) brain-body allometry has low ability to evolve. However, recent studies have reported mixed support for this view. Here, we examine brain-body static allometry in Lake Tanganyika cichlids using a phylogenetic comparative framework. We found considerable variation in the static allometric intercept, which explained the majority of variation in absolute and relative brain size. In contrast, the slope of the brain-body static allometry had relatively low variation, which explained less variation in absolute and relative brain size compared to the intercept and body size. Further examination of the tempo and mode of evolution of static allometric parameters confirmed these observations. Moreover, the estimated evolutionary parameters indicate that the limited observed variation in the static allometric slope could be a result of strong stabilizing selection. Overall, our findings suggest that the brain-body static allometric slope may represent an evolutionary constraint in Lake Tanganyika cichlids.

  • 2015. Alexander Kotrschal (et al.). Ecology Letters 18 (7), 646-652

    There is remarkable diversity in brain size among vertebrates, but surprisingly little is known about how ecological species interactions impact the evolution of brain size. Using guppies, artificially selected for large and small brains, we determined how brain size affects survival under predation threat in a naturalistic environment. We cohoused mixed groups of small- and large-brained individuals in six semi-natural streams with their natural predator, the pike cichlid, and monitored survival in weekly censuses over 5 months. We found that large-brained females had 13.5% higher survival compared to small-brained females, whereas the brain size had no discernible effect on male survival. We suggest that large-brained females have a cognitive advantage that allows them to better evade predation, whereas large-brained males are more colourful, which may counteract any potential benefits of brain size. Our study provides the first experimental evidence that trophic interactions can affect the evolution of brain size.

  • 2015. Wouter van der Bijl (et al.). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 282 (1812), 116-124

    Large brains are thought to result from selection for cognitive benefits, but how enhanced cognition leads to increased fitness remains poorly understood. One explanation is that increased cognitive ability results in improved monitoring and assessment of predator threats. Here, we use male and female guppies (Poecilia reticulata), artificially selected for large and small brain size, to provide an experimental evaluation of this hypothesis. We examined their behavioural response as singletons, pairs or shoals of four towards a model predator. Large-brained females, but not males, spent less time performing predator inspections, an inherently risky behaviour. Video analysis revealed that large-brained females were further away from the model predator when in pairs but that they habituated quickly towards the model when in shoals of four. Males stayed further away from the predator model than females but again we found no brain size effect in males. We conclude that differences in brain size affect the female predator response. Large-brained females might be able to assess risk better or need less sensory information to reach an accurate conclusion. Our results provide experimental support for the general idea that predation pressure is likely to be important for the evolution of brain size in prey species.

  • 2015. Yu-Chia Chen (et al.). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 282 (1810)

    Brain size varies substantially across the animal kingdom and is often associated with cognitive ability; however, the genetic architecture underpinning natural variation in these key traits is virtually unknown. In order to identify the genetic architecture and loci underlying variation in brain size, we analysed both coding sequence and expression for all the loci expressed in the telencephalon in replicate populations of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) artificially selected for large and small relative brain size. A single gene, Angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1), a regulator of angiogenesis and suspected driver of neural development, was differentially expressed between large-and small-brain populations. Zebra fish (Danio rerio) morphants showed that mild knock down of Ang-1 produces a small-brained phenotype that could be rescued with Ang-1 mRNA. Translation inhibition of Ang-1 resulted in smaller brains in larvae and increased expression of Notch-1, which regulates differentiation of neural stem cells. In situ analysis of newborn large-and small-brained guppies revealed matching expression patterns of Ang-1 and Notch-1 to those observed in zebrafish larvae. Taken together, our results suggest that the genetic architecture affecting brain size in our population may be surprisingly simple, and Ang-1 may be a potentially important locus in the evolution of vertebrate brain size and cognitive ability.

  • 2015. Alexander Kotrschal (et al.). Evolution 69 (11), 3013-3020

    One key hypothesis in the study of brain size evolution is the expensive tissue hypothesis; the idea that increased investment into the brain should be compensated by decreased investment into other costly organs, for instance the gut. Although the hypothesis is supported by both comparative and experimental evidence, little is known about the potential changes in energetic requirements or digestive traits following such evolutionary shifts in brain and gut size. Organisms may meet the greater metabolic requirements of larger brains despite smaller guts via increased food intake or better digestion. But increased investment in the brain may also hamper somatic growth. To test these hypotheses we here used guppy (Poecilia reticulata) brain size selection lines with a pronounced negative association between brain and gut size and investigated feeding propensity, digestive efficiency (DE), and juvenile growth rate. We did not find any difference in feeding propensity or DE between large-and small-brained individuals. Instead, we found that large-brained females had slower growth during the first 10 weeks after birth. Our study provides experimental support that investment into larger brains at the expense of gut tissue carries costs that are not necessarily compensated by a more efficient digestive system.

  • 2014. Alexander Kotrschal (et al.). Evolution 68 (4), 1139-1149

    Animal personalities range from individuals that are shy, cautious, and easily stressed (a reactive personality type) to individuals that are bold, innovative, and quick to learn novel tasks, but also prone to routine formation (a proactive personality type). Although personality differences should have important consequences for fitness, their underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated how genetic variation in brain size affects personality. We put selection lines of large- and small-brained guppies (Poecilia reticulata), with known differences in cognitive ability, through three standard personality assays. First, we found that large-brained animals were faster to habituate to, and more exploratory in, open field tests. Large-brained females were also bolder. Second, large-brained animals excreted less cortisol in a stressful situation (confinement). Third, large-brained animals were slower to feed from a novel food source, which we interpret as being caused by reduced behavioral flexibility rather than lack of innovation in the large-brained lines. Overall, the results point toward a more proactive personality type in large-brained animals. Thus, this study provides the first experimental evidence linking brain size and personality, an interaction that may affect important fitness-related aspects of ecology such as dispersal and niche exploration.

  • 2013. Alexander Kotrschal (et al.). Current Biology 23 (2), 168-171

    The large variation in brain size that exists in the animal kingdom has been suggested to have evolved through the balance between selective advantages of greater cognitive ability and the prohibitively high energy demands of a larger brain (the "expensive-tissue hypothesis" [1]). Despite over a century of research on the evolution of brain size, empirical support for the trade-off between cognitive ability and energetic costs is based exclusively on correlative evidence [2], and the theory remains controversial [3, 4]. Here we provide experimental evidence for costs and benefits of increased brain size. We used artificial selection for large and small brain size relative to body size in a live-bearing fish, the guppy (Poecilia reticulata), and found that relative brain size evolved rapidly in response to divergent selection in both sexes. Large-brained females outperformed small-brained females in a numerical learning assay designed to test cognitive ability. Moreover, large-brained lines, especially males, developed smaller guts, as predicted by the expensive-tissue hypothesis [1], and produced fewer offspring. We propose that the evolution of brain size is mediated by a functional trade-off between increased cognitive ability and reproductive performance and discuss the implications of these findings for vertebrate brain evolution.

  • 2012. Niclas Kolm (et al.). Current Biology 22 (15), 1440-1443

    The evolutionary divergence of sexual signals is often important during the formation of new animal species, but our understanding of the origin of signal diversity is limited [1, 2]. Sensory drive, the optimization of communication signal efficiency through matching to the local environment, has been highlighted as a potential promoter of diversification and speciation [3]. The swordtail characin (Corynopoma riisei) is a tropical fish in which males display a flag-like ornament that elicits female foraging behavior during courtship. We show that the shape of the male ornament covaries with female diet across natural populations. More specifically, natural populations in which the female diet is more dominated by ants exhibit male ornaments more similar to the shape of an ant. Feeding experiments confirm that females habituated to a diet of ants prefer to bite at male ornaments from populations with a diet more dominated by ants. Our results show that the male ornament functions as a "fishing lure" that is diversifying in shape to match local variation in female search images employed during foraging. This direct link between variation in female feeding ecology and the evolutionary diversification of male sexual ornaments suggests that sensory drive may be a common engine of signal divergence.

  • 2012. J. L. Fitzpatrick (et al.). Evolution 66 (11), 3595-3604

    Male reproductive success is influenced by competitive interactions during precopulatory and postcopulatory selective episodes. Consequently, males can gain reproductive advantages during precopulatory contest competition by investing in weaponry and during postcopulatory sperm competition by investing in ejaculates. However, recent theory predicts male expenditure on weaponry and ejaculates should be subject to a trade-off, and should vary under increasing risk and intensity of sperm competition. Here, we provide the first comparative analysis of the prediction that expenditure on weaponry should be negatively associated with expenditure on testes mass. Specifically, we assess how sexual selection influences the evolution of primary and secondary sexual traits among pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses). Using recently developed comparative methods, we demonstrate that sexual selection promotes rapid divergence in body mass, sexual size dimorphism (SSD), and genital morphology. We then show that genital length appears to be positively associated with the strength of postcopulatory sexual selection. However, subsequent analyses reveal that both genital length and testes mass are negatively associated with investment in precopulatory weaponry. Thus, our results are congruent with recent theoretical predictions of contest-based sperm competition models. We discuss the possible role of trade-offs and allometry in influencing patterns of reproductive trait evolution in pinnipeds.

  • 2009. John L. Fitzpatrick (et al.). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106 (4), 1128-1132

    Sperm competition, the contest among ejaculates from rival males to fertilize ova of a female, is a common and powerful evolutionary force influencing ejaculate traits. During competitive interactions between ejaculates, longer and faster spermatozoa are expected to have an edge; however, to date, there has been mixed support for this key prediction from sperm competition theory. Here, we use the spectacular radiation of cichlid fishes from Lake Tanganyika to examine sperm characteristics in 29 closely related species. We provide phylogenetically robust evidence that species experiencing greater levels of sperm competition have faster-swimming sperm. We also show that sperm competition selects for increases in the number, size, and longevity of spermatozoa in the ejaculate of a male, and, contrary to expectations from theory, we find no evidence of trade-offs among sperm traits in an interspecific analysis. Also, sperm swimming speed is positively correlated with sperm length among, but not within, species. These different responses to sperm competition at intra-and interspecific levels provide a simple, powerful explanation for equivocal results from previous studies. Using phylogenetic analyses, we also reconstructed the probable evolutionary route of trait evolution in this taxon, and show that, in response to increases in the magnitude of sperm competition, the evolution of sperm traits in this clade began with the evolution of faster (thus, more competitive) sperm.

  • 2009. Alejandro Gonzalez-Voyer, Svante Winberg, Niclas Kolm. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 276 (1654), 161-167

    As with any organ, differences in brain size-after adequate control of allometry-are assumed to be a response to selection. With over 200 species and an astonishing diversity in niche preferences and social organization, Tanganyikan cichlids present an excellent opportunity to study brain evolution. We used phylogenetic comparative analyses of sexed adults from 39 Tanganyikan cichlid species in a multiple regression framework to investigate the influence of ecology, sexual selection and parental care patterns on whole brain size, as well as to analyse sex-specific effects. First, using species-specific measures, we analysed the influence of diet, habitat, form of care (mouthbrooding or substrate guarding), care type (biparental or female only) and intensity of sexual selection on brain size, while controlling for body size. Then, we repeated the analyses for male and female brain size separately. Type of diet and care type were significantly correlated with whole brain size. Sex-specific analyses showed that female brain size correlated significantly with care type while male brain size was uncorrelated with care type. Our results suggest that more complex social interactions associated with diet select for larger brains and further that the burden of uniparental care exerts high cognitive demands on females.

  • 2008. Alejandro Gonzalez-Voyer, John L. Fitzpatrick, Niclas Kolm. Evolution 62 (8), 2015-2026

    Despite a massive research effort, our understanding of why, in most vertebrates, males compete for mates and females care for offspring remains incomplete. Two alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the direction of causality between parental care and sexual selection. Traditionally, sexual selection has been explained as a consequence of relative parental investment, where the sex investing less will compete for the sex investing more. However, a more recent model suggests that parental care patterns result from sexual selection acting on one sex favoring mating competition and lower parental investment. Using species-level comparative analyses on Tanganyikan cichlid fishes we tested these alternative hypotheses employing a proxy of sexual selection based on mating system, sexual dichromatism, and dimorphism data. First, while controlling for female reproductive investment, we found that species with intense sexual selection were associated with female-only care whereas species with moderate sexual selection were associated with biparental care. Second, using contingency analyses, we found that, contrary to the traditional view, evolutionary changes in parental care type are dependent on the intensity of sexual selection. Hence, our results support the hypothesis that sexual selection determines parental care patterns in Tanganyikan cichlid fishes.

  • 2005. B. C. Emerson, Niclas Kolm. Nature 434 (7036), 1015-1017

    A fundamental question in evolutionary ecology and conservation biology is: why do some areas contain greater species diversity than others? Island biogeographic theory has identified the roles of immigration and extinction in relation to area size and proximity to source areas(1,2), and the role of speciation is also recognized as an important factor(3-6). However, one as yet unexplored possibility is that species diversity itself might help to promote speciation, and indeed the central tenets of island biogeographic theory support such a prediction. Here we use data for plants and arthropods of the volcanic archipelagos of the Canary and Hawaiian Islands to address whether there is a positive relationship between species diversity and rate of diversification. Our index of diversification for each island is the proportion of species that are endemic, and we test our prediction that this increases with increasing species number. We show that even after controlling for several important physical features of islands, diversification is strongly related to species number.

  • 2001. Niclas Kolm. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences 268 (1482), 2229-2234

    When individuals receive different returns from their reproductive investment dependent on mate quality, they are expected to invest more when breeding with higher quality mates. A number of studies over the past decade have shown that females may alter their reproductive effort depending on the quality/attractiveness of their mate. However, to date, despite extensive work on parental investment, such a differential allocation has not been demonstrated in fish. Indeed, so far only two studies from any taxon have suggested that females alter the quality of individual offspring according to the quality/attractiveness of their mate. The banggai cardinal fish is an obligate paternal mouth brooder where females lay few large eggs. It has previously been shown that male size determines clutch weight irrespective of female size in this species. In this study, I investigated whether females perform more courtship displays towards larger males and whether females allocate their reproductive effort depending on the size of their mate by experimentally assigning females to either large or small males. I found that females displayed more towards larger males, thereby suggesting a female preference for larger males. Further, females produced heavier eggs and heavier clutches but not more eggs when paired with large males. My experiments show that females in this species adjust their offspring weight and, thus, presumably offspring quality according to the size of their mate.

Show all publications by Niclas Kolm at Stockholm University

Last updated: December 6, 2019

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How to Teach Public Speaking

How to Teach Public Speaking
Admin - Feb 04 2017

Speaking in front of an audience can be a terrifying experience, and even more so using a second language for the communication. As a teacher you need to impact on to your students speaking skills as part of their daily learning activities but first let us answer this, what is public speaking?

Public speaking involves talking in front of a group of people or a gathering, usually the person giving the speech is required to do some preparation. It can be in front of people that you know for example a family gathering or a crowd of strangers. Unlike a presentation, there normally isn’t a lot of opportunity for interaction between the audience and the speaker – the speaker speaks, and the audience listens. There are reasons why public speech is done and regarding the ultimate goal then the speech differs. a person maybe giving a speech to persuade the public maybe to nominate you for an award, inform the people for example of a certain event or product , entertain or to celebrate someone for an achievement. Speech may contain two or three of these functions.

Why is it important to teach public speaking to your students?

At some point in someone’s life there will be need to stand and speak in front of a group of people. As a teacher, your students need to have the necessary skills for doing this which will help them to do public speaking more successfully. As the students keep practicing, there is often an increase in their general confidence and also a marked sense of achievement. During their first time of doing a speech infront of people, many students get really nervous. To avoid or minimize this, there is need for practice and as the saying goes practice makes perfect. Working on public speaking also helps to develop students’ overall fluency in English and requires them to consider how they speak as well as what they say. This is useful for speaking in any situation, public or otherwise. The following are techniques that you can teach your students to help them be successful in the whole process.

1.     Generating content.

It is often difficult to get started that is, regarding your topic of interest. It is quite hard to start on something that will smoothly flow. Give your students maybe a topic for them to talk about. If you have samples of speeches done by the president of your country you can read it out for your students. That’s the foundation and if they get it right you can be sure of positive feedback.

2.     Speech structure

Your students need to know that their speech need to have an excellent introduction, a well-structured body and a good conclusion. As a teacher you can choose to give them a standard introduction, but it is good to encourage them to get their own unique ways of starting a speech. This then gives them a focus for the structure of the rest of the speech.

3.     The body language

Another key thing to look out for when giving a speech is how you present it. Well there is no point of having a good written or memorized speech then you fail to deliver it well to your audience. Our bodies communicate a lot and according to statistics it amounts to 70% thus very important. They include

·       Eye contact

For your students to be familiar with this, make them practice in front of the class every now and then. Let the other students comment on the speech and may be now and then they can correct their mistakes and learn them. Let them know the importance of making eye contact with ideally everyone and everything in the room this is because many students tend to look at one spot or at the teacher.

·       posture

While giving a speech you need to be standing still. At first it might be hard due to nervousness but make your students practice. Moving from side to side or shaking during public speaking will make your audience concentrate more on you than what you are telling them. This will make the purpose of it loose meaning thus a good posture is very important.

·       Gestures

The use of gestures is a key is also one of the key things your students should note. Gestures helps spice up the speech. Use this to try make people or the audience visualize what you are really talking about.

4.     Pausing and stressing

It is important to note where to pause and where to stress in your speech. This shows that you are perfectly versant with your topic, it also makes you sound confident.

To improve on what you have taught them in class regarding public speaking you can include the following to help them more.

·       Workshop with a professional speaker.

  • Workshop with an aspiring speaker.
  • Invite the above also to be judges of your student’s speech presentations. This can be done after a thorough teaching of public speaking. After that you can challenge your students to write a brief speech which they are supposed to present to the judges. It is important to remind your students that this is not supposed to break them but to build them.

Importance of public speaking

It is good to note that even if the students do not land an opportunity to present a speech while in school, it is not the end because having good speaking skills can be a stepping stone to one's career. Good public speaking skills applies entirely in one’s life for example you can be requested to give a speech at a party, a wedding and other places.

As the above shows public speaking is a crucial topic especially to students learning English as their second language. If as a teacher you are not that well equipped with the knowledge of how to teach public speaking widely, there are always books for this thus, do not panic. You can make the greatest orators of the century.

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Continuing from our previous article, we debunk 4 more myths about men’s hair.

Pulling grey hair out makes more grow
It can be tempting to pull out grey hairs but you’ve probably heard people say that this makes more grow in their place. This is definitely an old wives tale but it still isn’t advisable to pluck your hair out. As with greying, many men start experiencing hair loss as they get older. Pulling out all those greys will leave you looking thinner on top than ever.

You need lots of bubbles to cleanse your hair properly
There is something about lots of bubbles that people associate with cleanliness. However, a good shampoo doesn’t need to form a thick lather to get your hair clean. What is important is to use products that are suited to your hair type and needs. If your hair is fine and dry, a shampoo that nourishes while enhancing volume would be beneficial. Oiler, thicker hair types will find that a clarifying shampoo with hydrating ingredients would work better for them. Whatever your hair type, if you are experiencing hair loss, shampoo won’t cure it and it is a good idea to seek specialist advice about the treatments available.

Regular trims make hair grow faster

The experts at Vinci Hair Clinic say that it’s a common misconception that hair grows faster the more often it is cut. Our hair growth rates are controlled by our genes and can be affected by diet, stress and other factors. What you can do to ensure that your hair grows at a healthy rate is to supply your body with adequate nutrients by taking the Vitruvian Line vitamin and mineral complex from Vinci Hair Clinic.

Genes inherited from your mother cause male pattern baldness

Male pattern baldness (androgenetic alopecia) causes the receding hairline and thinning crown that around 50% of men develop by their 50s. People often believe that the condition is inherited from the maternal side of the family but genes for this type of hair loss come from both parents. The good news is that there are several excellent treatments that can halt the progression of male pattern baldness and even regrow lost hair.

Debunking Myths About Men’s Hair Part 2


CHI PHAT, CAMBODIA — Drop everything, see the world, and try to make a difference in every far-flung corner of the globe possible. It may sound like an impossible dream, but one couple with local roots is doing just that.

Born to explore, Tiffany Soukup, formerly of Arkport, and Chris Brader met as members of the Buffalo State Adventure Club, and have traveled the world for the better part of 10 years since, jet setting to more than 30 countries in that time. For part of the year they help run state parks in Vermont, but during their downtime they like to explore the cultures of the world.

They run the blog website, where they document their travels and give tips on how to drop everything and live a nomadic lifestyle.

The source:


Harlekino Wall Hanging

Harlekino is a range of stickable acoustic wallpaper, enabling everybody to create all sorts of patterns in all sorts of colours. The traditional harlequin pattern is colourful and designed to make a statement. The diamonds of the Harlekino give an opportunity to create a beautiful wall covering of any size that adds soft volume to any space. The 2mm 100% merino wool felt is eco-friendly and sourced from Germany‘s leading supplier, reinforcing Studio Lawrence‘s belief in using only the highest quality European materials and manufacturing. Harlekino is a playful and dynamic piece, designed to improve both aesthetics and acoustics.


The Land of the Long White Cloud

The Land of the Long White Cloud — Notes on My Visit to New Zealand By Wang Hong
Pictured Above: Editor-in-Chief, Wang Hong with Maori host, Robyn Tauroa

In China, when people talk about New Zealand, the first things that come to mind are clear blue skies, fresh air and high-quality dairy products. For us, working in the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, New Zealand has a special appeal, for it is the homeland of the late Rewi Alley (1897-1987)*, an old friend of the Chinese people who did so much for the construction and development of China and made important contributions to developing the friendship between the two countries. He lived in the CPAFFC compound from 1958 until his death.
Invited by the Maori-China Friendship Association, a CPAFFC delegation paid a 10-day friendly visit to New Zealand last November. I was fortunate to be a member. With profound memory of our old friend Rewi, I had much expectation of the visit to his homeland.

Learning About the History and Culture of the Maori People
It was the first visit to New Zealand for most members of the delegation. Everything we saw and heard was new. We had our first taste of the Maori culture when we visited the Maori schools—Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tawhiuau and Te Kura of Hirangi. The teachers and students received us with formal welcome ceremonies which began with chanting, followed by welcome speeches in the Maori language and ended with hongi (the traditional Maori greeting done by pressing noses and foreheads together). The students also put on shows of Maori dances and songs.

At Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tawhiuau, school principal Pem Bird gave a brief account of the Maori history. There are 55 Maori tribes in New Zealand claiming Polynesian origin. Having braved strong winds and high waves and overcome numerous difficulties and dangers, their ancestors arrived in New Zealand in canoes from Hawaiki about 1,000 years ago. The tribes divided the land into separate territories over which they exercised sovereignty, although they also forged inter-tribal alliances as time past.

The Maoris were mainly engaged in agriculture, although some lived on fishing, hunting and gathering. They had a very well developed handicraft industry.

In the early 19th century, more and more British settlers traveled to New Zealand. They seized land from the Maoris, triggering wars. In 1840, after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, the country became a British colony.
The impact of colonization was devastating. The Maori population decreased dramatically, almost to the point of extinction. Not until the country became independent in 1907 were the rights of the Maori people respected, and its population began to grow again. Influenced by the British New Zealanders, changes have taken place in the Maori society. The Maori people today speak English and many of them work in cities. They have a growing sense of identity and their culture has been revived. This is why the primitive sacrificial ritual dances have become traditional art forms, showing the unique cultural charm of New Zealand.

Above: Principal, Pem Bird giving us an introduction to Maori history and his school, Te Kura Kaupapa Motuhake o Tawhiuau

At the Waitetoko Marae in Turangi, we were greeted with a formal ceremony featuring a challenge, speeches, songs and hongi. Being treated as distinguished guests, we were put up in the marae, the tribe’s sacred meetinghouse where their ancestors’ spirits are enshrined and where all ceremonies are held and decisions concerning the tribe are made.
When I entered the marae, I saw the inside walls were decorated with painted planks hung with pictures of tribal leaders and woven panels. Along one side, mattresses were placed on the floor. Our considerate hosts had prepared everything—mattresses, pillows, quilts and blankets and even electric heaters—for us.
As outsiders, it was a great honor to live in the marae, but we all felt somewhat embarrassed as male and female members would spend the night under the same roof. After two days’ stay, I had a different feeling and began to understand the intimate relationship among the Maori people. In their primitive tribal life, they had depended on each other and worked together to survive. This creates firm trust and is also the source of their sincere friendship for their Chinese friends. Having experienced it, I valued it all the more.

The delegation with Ngati Tuwharetoa elders and other Maori friends at Waitetoko Marae, Taupo

The Maori people pay great attention to education, which is an important guarantee for their cultural tradition to continue. At the Maori schools we visited we learnt that all classes are taught in the Maori language. The schools can make their own curricula and adopt the teaching methods of their choice. Children study the Maori language, history, cultural tradition and science, learn to respect older people and nature as well as production skills such as raising pigs, growing vegetables, etc.
Though the Maori people occupy only 14 % of the total population of New Zealand, they have well protected their unique culture through basic education so that traditional arts including moko (tattoo), haka (dance) and powhiri (formal welcome) will pass on generation after generation.

Pictured Above: Pupils at Te Kura o Hirangi performing Maori dance for our delegation

Pictured Above: The delegation at Opotaka, the birthplace of Ka mate, Ka mate. The young men in the photo performed the haka for us!

“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!” the sonorous cries resounded at Opotaka, the sacred birthplace of the Haka (well known to rugby fans around the world as it is performed by the national team, the All Blacks, before every match). Four Maori students from Te Kura O Hirangi were performing Haka on the grassland by the lake against the background of snow-capped mountains in the distance.
They did not wear tattoos or the usual outfits for the dance, but their high-spirited and earnest acting still enabled us to see the valiant tribal warriors of those days ready to go to battles. This time they performed Haka not to arouse fighting morale, but to familiarize us with their culture.

Friends of Nature
The Maori people’s attitude towards nature is admirable. They own fertile land, mountains and rivers, but they have never overused them. They treasure everything around them. “Our ancestors sailed to New Zealand in canoes after going through numerous difficulties. They opened up the land to seek food for Maori people and to receive friends. We do not own the land. We are only caretakers. It is our duty to protect this land for our children and grandchildren.” These words of an elder of the tribe reflected the Maori people’s respect for nature and their profound love for the land that has nurtured their ancestors and will nurture their posterity.
It is because of their understanding of the relationship between man and environment that they have always used everything the land offers sparingly; it is because of their persistence and perseverance that New Zealand today still has blue skies, green mountains, clear waters and fresh air.

The Maori Hospitality

We toured Auckland, Rotorua, Murupara, Taupo, Wellington and Christchurch and visited Maori tribes, Maori schools, cultural centers, farms, museums, a brewery and a winery during our 10-day stay. We lived in close friendship with our Maori friends throughout the trip. Our home stay experience in Auckland enabled us to make friends and learn about the Maori family life. At Maori schools, we were impressed by Maori children’s enthusiastic performances of traditional Maori songs and dances.

At Waitetoko Marae, we were feasted with all the delicacies the land could produce such as eel, trout, beef, lamb, oyster, water cress, etc. and became intoxicated in the songs and dances we performed for each other to express our feelings. In Christchurch we gathered together with friends from the New Zealand-China Friendship Society and enjoyed the potluck dinner they prepared.

Maori friends see the delegation leave at Christchurch Airport

The humorous Danny Tauroa became our “driver” who took us safely all the way from one end of North Island (Auckland) to the other (Wellington), in addition to his many roles including “tour manager”, escort, etc. The joyous and warm-hearted Robyn Tauroa who accompanied us throughout our visit in North Island taught us Maori songs and our drive on the road was filled with songs and laughter.

Continuing the friendship

I remember at the Rewi Alley Park, we bowed before his bust to express our respect for him. He would be happy to know that the seeds of friendship between China and New Zealand he had sowed have now grown into tall trees and blossomed. We pledged we would continue to cultivate the friendship between China and New Zealand so that it would bear rich fruit.

The delegation paying respects to Rewi Alley at Rewi Alley Park in Auckland, NZ

*Rewi Alley, a New Zealander, came to China in 1927. Sharing wealth and woe with the Chinese people, he devoted 60 years of his life to Chinese people’s cause of liberation and construction. In the 1930s, he joined an international Marxist-Leninist group in Shanghai and wrote many articles publicizing the Chinese people’s resistance against Japanese aggressors. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he took an active part in and was one of the sponsors of the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Movement that became a unique economic force that emerged by organizing the unemployed workers and refugees into production and survival and in support of the Resistance War. After the founding of New China, he dedicated his efforts to safeguard world peace and the cause of friendship among the peoples of the world, making important contributions to developing friendship between the Chinese people and the people of New Zealand and other countries.


Click here to win prizes by solving the puzzle Advent calendar.
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Advent calendar 2017

8 December

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What is the mean of the numbers in the 23rd row?
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Lingua Fungi ‘Melankhton’ CD

Artist: Lingua Fungi
Title: Melankhton
Release date: September, 2014
Catalog# AH14
Format: CD

Aural Hypnox welcomes Lingua Fungi to the label roster. Lingua Fungi has been working in the field of acoustic drone and ambient since 2001 and is run by J. Padatsu, who has during the years appeared in the Zoat-Äon live lineup and is currently member of Halo Manash. The fourth full-lenght album of Lingua Fungi, entitled ‘Melankhton’ is released through our Sublunar series.

‘Melankhton’ is a sonic interpretation of particular illness narratives and a study in experimental anthropology based on fieldwork material gathered especially for this project. The narratives and sounds expressing them reflect the shifting states of the turbulent minds visited by Melankhton.

The album was recorded in 2006 using exclusively acoustic instruments and sound sources mixed with processed field recordings. The album consists of five long tracks with sounds varying from maniacal percussive rhythms to dreamy drone passages.

The album is enclosed in a customised and silk-screen printed Sublunar series cardboard covers, including a 4-panel cardboard booklet and a silk-screen printed insert card. The regular edition is limited to 449 copies.


Break in New Basketball Shoes

People wondering about breaking in brand new basketball shoes should know that there is no secret to this process. The individual has to simply put on the shoes and use them for some light activities, in order to get accustomed to the fit and the shape of the shoes, and avoid pain and blisters…

If you have recently bought a new pair of basketball shoes, then it is advisable to break into the shoes by using them a few times, before you use them for a proper match. They are typically made of very sturdy leather, so they take some time to alter themselves to the shape of the wearers foot, and this can result in some foot pain while playing, along with some blisters as well.

The tendency of new basketball shoes to cause pain and restrict movement is not surprising, since the person wearing them needs to move around and jump up and down many times during the course of the game. If the shoes are not comfortable while performing these activities, it will inevitably result in some discomfort and pain for the wearer. Simply running around in new shoes that are not broken in will also cause some problems, so every purchase must be followed by a suitable breaking-in period.

Best Way to Break in New Basketball Shoes

You cannot possibly do this without wearing them, so the aim should be to put them on and use them as much as possible. If you wear them and start playing a high intensity game right away, the chances of pain occurring in your foot are very high, so you should concentrate on jogging lightly for a few days. A suitable alternative is to put on the shoes around the house and carry on your daily activities for a few days. This will help you get your feet accustomed to the shoes, and it will also give the shoes enough time to alter their shape according to your foot. The longer you delay a proper game in the shoes, the better it will be for your foot. Over time, you can also start performing some basketball drills and exercises (like ankle stretches) that are similar to the movements that you will be making in a proper match.

Another alternative is to hold the shoe in both hands, with one hand under the toe of the shoe and the other hand supporting the heel. You should curl your finger around the toes and move the front part of the shoe up and down many time in order to loosen the rigidity of the shoes. This task will need to be performed for the other shoe as well, and it will ease the process in the future.


kdo asked in 科學及數學其他 - 科學 · 1 decade ago

有冇sensor可以測試到光既速度 , 準確至10^-9?

1 Answer

  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    The speed of light in a vacuum is an important physical constant denoted by the letter c0 for constant or for the Latin celeritas ("swiftness").[1][2] It is the speed of all electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, in a vacuum. More generally, it is the speed of anything having zero rest mass.

    In metric units, the speed of light in vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h).[3] The fundamental SI unit of length, the metre, has been defined since October 21, 1983, as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second; any increase in the measurement precision of the speed of light would refine the definition of the metre, but not alter the numerical value of c0. The approximate value of 3 × 108 m/s is commonly used in rough estimates. In imperial units, the speed of light is about 670,616,629.2 miles per hour or 983,571,056 feet per second, which is about 186,282.397 miles per second, or roughly one foot per nanosecond. See also the later section of this article at "Speed of light set by definition".

    The speed of light when it passes through a transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, is less than its speed in a vacuum. The ratio of c0 to the observed phase velocity is called the refractive index of the medium. General relativity explains how a gravitational potential can affect the apparent speed of distant light in a vacuum, but locally light in a vacuum always passes an observer at a rate of c0.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.


Older patient talking with nurse in hospital
It has been 12 years since the Center to Champion Nursing in America began its mission to see that people—all people—have access to a nurse when and where they need it
En esta Semana Nacional del Enfermero, deseo agradecer a todo el maravilloso personal de enfermería que he tenido la suerte de conocer. Cada día, los enfermeros del país ponen en práctica sus increíbles habilidades y su compasión para brindar alivio durante momentos difíciles y cuidar de los más vulnerables. Cuando cuidaba a mis padres, los enfermeros fueron parte fundamental de nuestro equipo de cuidado. En especial, la enfermera Sue, quien visitaba a mis padres en su hogar. Aunque todo el personal de enfermería realiza un trabajo increíble, me gustaría hoy centrarme en los enfermeros especializados y otros enfermeros registrados con capacitación avanzada (APRN). Ya sea en ciudades grandes, pueblos pequeños o áreas rurales, los enfermeros especializados realizan labores increíbles por las personas a las que cuidan. Han completado estudios de posgrado en áreas como la atención primaria y el cuidado de adultos mayores. Esto los capacita para atender a los adultos mayores del país en sus propios hogares y comunidades, lejos de las instituciones costosas financiadas por los contribuyentes. También se encargan de lo siguiente:
ThankYouNursesV3 SQ
This National Nurses Week, I’d like to stop and take a moment to say thank you to all of the amazing nurses that I’m fortunate to know. Each and every day, nurses across the country use their incredible skills and compassion to provide comfort during difficult times and care when we’re at our most vulnerable. When I was caring for my parents, nurses became a critical part of our care team. Especially Nurse Sue who visited my parents in their home. While all nurses do incredible work, I’d like to focus today on nurse practitioners and other advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs). In big cities, small towns and rural areas, alike, nurse practitioners do remarkable things for the people they serve. They’ve completed advanced education at the master’s or doctoral level, focused in areas like primary and elder care. With this training they care for older Americans in their homes and communities, keeping them out of costly, taxpayer-funded institutions. They handle:
During National Nurses Week, I am making a special effort to say “thank you” to all the nurses in my life, and I invite you to do the same. Each and every day, in communities across the country, nurses help their patients to get and stay well. They use their incredible skills to comfort us in difficult times and care for us when we’re at our most vulnerable.
This month, as state legislative sessions start kicking off across the country, AARP, too, will go to work — fighting for you and your family. In all 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, we’ll be fighting to make sure your voice is heard, focusing on the key issues you’re facing front and center, in your daily life.
As National Nurses Week concludes, I want to take a moment and thank all nurses — past, present, and future — for all that you do. I know firsthand the importance of nurses not only to patients, but to their families. During the 15 years I cared for my parents, nurses made a huge difference in our lives. There’s no doubt, caregiving takes a team, and so often nurses were a part of my family’s team.
At kitchen tables across America, real families are confronting the same question: How will we care for Mom and Dad (or another loved one) if something happens and they can’t take care of themselves?
I Heart Caregivers
As we enter National Family Caregivers Month, I think back to the time I spent as a caregiver to my mom.  For 12 years I was by her side, through diabetes, congestive heart failure, hospitalizations and more — all while juggling my job and raising my kids. It wasn’t always easy, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
As I drove from Billings, Mont., to Sheridan, Wyo., I saw a sign for "Buffalo 36 miles." Then it occurred to me that something felt strangely familiar. I grew up in a town called Lockport, about 29 miles from Buffalo, N.Y. So I researched a bit more. Sheridan has a population of 17,800; 20,000 live in Lockport. Sheridan gets about 72 inches of snow a year; Lockport posts a competitive 69 inches. And though my hometown doesn't have mountain ranges, it does share the same challenge — how to support family caregivers.
Susan Reinhard speaks at an AARP forum in Washington, DC
The national conversation about the value of nurses needs to move beyond health care experts and policymakers to include consumers and businesses
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Will Evolving Minds Delay The AI Apocalypse? – Part II

So what then is our mind?

Answer – NOTHING!

Spiral Dynamics

Will Evolving Minds Delay The AI Apocalypse? – Part I

Stephen Hawking once warned that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” He went on to explain that AI will “take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate,” while “humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.” He is certainly not alone in his thinking, as Elon Musk, for example, cautions that “With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.”

In fact, this is a common theme not only in Hollywood, but also between two prominent groups of philosophers and futurists.   One point of view is that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will become superintelligent and beyond the control of humans, resulting in all sorts of extinction scenarios (think SkyNet or Grey Goo). The (slightly) more optimistic point of view, held by the transhumanists, is that humanity will merge with advanced AI and form superhumans. So, while biological dumb humanity may go the way of the dodo bird, the new form of human-machine hybrid will continue to advance and rule the universe. By the way, this is supposed to happen around 2045, according to Ray Kurzweil in his 2005 book “The Singularity is Near.”

There are actually plenty of logical and philosophical arguments against these ideas, but this blog is going to focus on something different – the nature of the human mind.

The standard theory is that humans cannot evolve their minds particularly quickly due to the assumption that we are limited by the wiring in our brains. AI, on the other hand, has no such limitations and, via recursive self-improvement, will evolve at a runaway exponential rate, making it inevitable to take over humans at some point in terms of intelligence.

But does this even make sense? Let’s examine both assumptions.

The first assumption is that AI advancements will continue at an exponential pace. This is short-sighted IMHO. Most exponential processes run into negative feedback effects that eventually dampen the acceleration. For example, exponential population growth occurs in bacterial colonies until the environment reaches its carrying capacity and then it levels off. We simply don’t know what the “carrying capacity” is of an AI. In an analogous manner, it has to run in some environment, which may run out of memory, power, or other resources at some point. Moore’s Law, the idea that transistor density doubles every two years, has been applied to many other technology advances, such as CPU speed and networking bit rates, and is the cornerstone of the logic behind the Singularity. However, difficulties in heat dissipation have now slowed down the rate of advances in CPU speed, and Moore’s Law no longer applies. Transistor density is also hitting its limit as transistor junctions are now only a few atoms thick. Paul Allen argues, in his article “The Singularity Isn’t Near,” that the kinds of learning required to move AI ahead do not occur at exponential rates, but rather in an irregular and unpredictable manner. As things get more complex, progress tends to slow, an effect he calls the Complexity Brake.

Let’s look at one example. Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a game in 1996, the first time a machine beat a world Chess champion. Google’s AlphaGo beat a grandmaster at Go for the first time in 2016. In those 20 years, there are 10 2-year doubling cycles in Moore’s Law, which would imply that, if AI were advancing exponentially, the “intelligence” needed to beat a Go master is 1000 times more than the intelligence needed to beat a Chess master. Obviously this is ridiculous. While Go is theoretically a more complex game than Chess because it has many more possible moves, an argument could be made that the intellect and mastery required to become the world champion at each game is roughly the same. So, while the advances in processing speed and algorithmic development (Deep Blue used a brute force algorithm, while AlphaGo did more pattern recognition) were substantial between 1996 and 2016, they don’t really show much advance in “intelligence.”

It would also be insightful to examine some real estimates of AI trends. For some well-researched data, consider Stanford University’s AI Index. Created and launched as a project at Stanford University, the AI Index is an “open, not-for-profit project to track activity and progress in AI.” In their 2017 report,  they identify metrics for the progress made in several areas of Artificial Intelligence, such as object detection, natural language parsing, language translation, speech recognition, theorem proving, and SAT solving. For each of the categories for which there is at least 8 years of data, I normalized the AI performance and calculated the improvements over time and averaged the results (note: I was even careful to invert the data – for example, for a pattern recognition algorithm to improve from 90% accuracy to 95%, this is not a 5% improvement; it is actually a 100% improvement in the ability to reject false positives). The chart below shows that AI is not advancing nearly as quickly as Moore’s Law.

Advancing Artificial Intelligence

Figure 1 – Advancing Artificial Intelligence

In fact, the doubling period is about 6 years instead of 2, which would suggest that we need 3 times as long before hitting the Singularity as compared to Kurzweil’s prediction. Since the 2045 projection for the Singularity occurred in 2005, this would say that we wouldn’t really see it until 2125. That’s assuming that we keep pace with the current rate of growth of AI, and don’t even hit Paul Allen’s Complexity Brake. So, chances are it is much further off than that. (As an aside, according to some futurists, Ray does not have a particularly great success rate for his predictions, even ones that are only 10 years out.

But a lot can happen in 120 years. Unexpected, discontinuous jumps in technology can accelerate the process. Social, economic, and political factors can severely slow it down. Recall how in just 10 years in the 1960s, we figured out how to land a man on the moon. Given the rate at which we were advancing our space technology and applying Moore’s Law (which was in effect at that time), it would not have been unreasonable to expect a manned mission to Mars by 1980. In fact Werner von Braun, the leader of the American rocket team, predicted after the moon landing that we would be on Mars in the early 1980s. But in the wake of the Vietnam debacle, public support for additional investment in NASA waned and the entire space program took a drastic turn. Such factors are probably even more impactful to the future of AI than the limitations of Moore’s Law.

The second assumption we need to examine is that the capacity of the human mind is limited by the complexity of the human brain, and is therefore relatively fixed. We will do that in Part II of this article.

The Singularity Cometh? Or not?

There is much talk these days about the coming Singularity.  We are about 37 years away, according to Ray Kurzweil.  For some, the prospect is exhilarating – enhanced mental capacity, ability to experience fantasy simulations, immortality.  For others, the specter of the Singularity is frightening – AI’s run amok, all Terminator-like.  Then there are those who question the entire idea.  A lively debate on our forum triggered this post as we contrasted the position of transhumanists (aka cybernetic totalists) and singularity-skeptics.

For example, Jaron Lanier’s “One Half of a Manifesto” published in Wired and edge.org, suggests that our inability to develop advances in software will, at least for now, prevent the Singularity from happening according to the Moore’s Law pace.  One great quote from his demi-manifesto: “Just as some newborn race of superintelligent robots are about to consume all humanity, our dear old species will likely be saved by a Windows crash. The poor robots will linger pathetically, begging us to reboot them, even though they’ll know it would do no good.”  Kurzweil countered with a couple specific examples of successful software advances, such as speech recognition (which is probably due more to algorithm development than software techniques).

I must admit, I am also disheartened by the slow pace of software advances.  Kurzweil is not the only guy on the planet to have spent his career living and breathing software and complex computational systems.  I’ve written my share of gnarly assembly code, neural nets, and trading systems.  But, it seems to be that it takes almost as long to open a Word document, boot up, or render a 3D object on today’s blazingly fast PCs as it did 20 years ago on a machine running at less than 1% of today’s clock rate.  Kurzweil claims that we have simply forgotten: “Jaron has forgotten just how unresponsive, unwieldy, and limited they were.”

So, I wondered, who is right?  Are there objective tests out there?  I found an interesting article in PC World that compared the boot-up time from a 1981 PC to that of a 2001 PC.  Interestingly, the 2001 was over 3 times slower (51 seconds for boot up) than its 20-year predecessor (16 seconds).  My 2007 Thinkpad – over 50 seconds.  Yes, I know that Vista is much more sophisticated than MS-DOS and therefore consumes much more disk and memory and takes that much more time to load.  But really, are those 3D spinning doodads really helping me work better?

Then I found a benchmark comparison on the performance on 6 different Word versions over the years.  Summing 5 typical operations, the fastest version was Word 95 at 3 seconds.  Word 2007 clocked in at 12 seconds (in this test, they all ran on the same machine).

In summary, software has become bloated.  Developers don’t think about performance as much as they used to because memory and CPU speed is cheap.  Instead, the trend in software development is layers of abstraction and frameworks on top of frameworks.  Developers have become increasingly specialized (“I don’t do “Tiles”, I only do “Struts”) and very few get the big picture.

What does this have to do with the Singularity?  Simply this – With some notable exceptions, software development has not even come close to following Moore’s Law in terms of performance or reliability.  Yet, the Singularity predictions depend on it.  So don’t sell your humanity stock anytime soon.

Mac Guy, PC Guy


McMansionization of America

Over the last few decades there has been one home that has stood out as a model home, of sorts – the McMansion.  First appearing in the 1980s, the term “McMansion” has evolved over the years to generally refer to a new home which feels too large for its property and out of scale with the homes around it.  The popularity and accessibility of these over-sized homes was fueled by easy access to low-cost loans, such as sub-prime mortgages, which allowed people to buy more house than they could actually afford.  This debt-driven real estate splurge lead directly to the Great Recession (2007-2009), the worst global recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Ironically, the growth of these larger homes occurred at the same time that the average American family reduced in size.  Based on US Census Data, the average American household size shrunk by 15% leading up to the recession, from 3.01 people (1973) to 2.56 people (2007).  During this same period the median size of new homes increased by nearly 50%, from 1,525 S.F. (1973) to 2,277 S.F. (2007).  Combined, this data shows that the median new home, comparing square foot per person, increased by a staggering 76%.  While the recession lead to a brief stabilization of new home size, as the economy began to recover home sizes returned to their previous upward trend reaching 2,467 S.F. by 2015.   This trend was further exaggerated in the Washington, DC area where, according to Metrostudy, in the first three quarters of 2017 the median new home size was 3,536 S.F. – the nation’s largest.  This larger median size was driven by homeowners and developers maximizing the buildable area of a particular property with help from local zoning regulations that often allow for home sizes nearing 8,000 S.F., even on smaller lot sizes (6,000 S.F.).

There is a price to be paid for these larger homes that goes beyond the extreme cost of their construction and their subsequent mortgage.  Their footprint covers more natural landscape, creates more stormwater runoff and water pollution, uses more energy to power and control interior temperatures, requires more labor to maintain and upkeep, and increases the amount of property taxes owed.  This is without accounting for any potential extrapolating effects on climate change or the devastating impact they caused with the global recession.

Knowing all of this, why do we so eagerly continue to bear their costs?  What if we changed the way we approached new home development?  What if we designed and built homes that were sized to fit our actual needs and eliminated rooms whose sole function it is to collect dust?  What if we stopped building McMansions and decided today’s median home size should be its maximum size?


5 describe the four 4 steps of capital budgeting analysis

Capital budgeting is process of selecting best long term investment project.

5 describe the four 4 steps of capital budgeting analysis

Wrapping It All Up Capital budgeting is a step by step process that businesses use to determine the merits of an investment project. The decision of whether to accept or deny an investment project as part of a company's growth initiatives, involves determining the investment rate of return that such a project will generate.

However, what rate of return is deemed acceptable or unacceptable is influenced by other factors that are specific to the company as well as the project.

For example, a social or charitable project is often not approved based on rate of return, but more on the desire of a business to foster goodwill and contribute back to its community.

Four Steps of Capital Budgeting Analysis

Capital budgeting is important because it creates accountability and measurability. Any business that seeks to invest its resources in a project, without understanding the risks and returns involved, would be held as irresponsible by its owners or shareholders.

Furthermore, if a business has no way of measuring the effectiveness of its investment decisions, chances are that the business will have little chance of surviving in the competitive marketplace. Businesses aside from non-profits exist to earn profits.

The capital budgeting process is a measurable way for businesses to determine the long-term economic and financial profitability of any investment project.

Capital budgeting is also vital to a business because it creates a structured step by step process that enables a company to: Develop and formulate long-term strategic goals — the ability to set long-term goals is essential to the growth and prosperity of any business. Seek out new investment projects — knowing how to evaluate investment projects gives a business the model to seek and evaluate new projects, an important function for all businesses as they seek to compete and profit in their industry.

Estimate and forecast future cash flows — future cash flows are what create value for businesses overtime. Capital budgeting enables executives to take a potential project and estimate its future cash flows, which then helps determine if such a project should be accepted.

Facilitate the transfer of information — from the time that a project starts off as an idea to the time it is accepted or rejected, numerous decisions have to be made at various levels of authority. The capital budgeting process facilitates the transfer of information to the appropriate decision makers within a company.

Since a good project can turn bad if expenditures aren't carefully controlled or monitored, this step is a crucial benefit of the capital budgeting process. Creation of Decision — when a capital budgeting process is in place, a company is then able to create a set of decision rules that can categorize which projects are acceptable and which projects are unacceptable.

The result is a more efficiently run business that is better equipped to quickly ascertain whether or not to proceed further with a project or shut it down early in the process, thereby saving a company both time and money. Unlike other business decisions that involve a singular aspect of a business, a capital budgeting decision involves two important decisions at once: By taking on a project, the business has agreed to make a financial commitment to a project, and that involves its own set of risks.

Projects can run into delays, cost overruns and regulatory restrictions that can all delay or increase the projected cost of the project.

Capital Budgeting: The Importance Of Capital Budgeting

In addition to a financial decision, a company is also making an investment in its future direction and growth that will likely have an influence on future projects that the company considers and evaluates.

So to make a capital investment decision only from the perspective of either a financial or investment decisions can pose serious limitations on the success of the project. In December ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, announced that it was acquiring XTO Resources, one of the largest natural gas companies in the U.Describe how is project risk is incorporated into a capital budgeting analysis.

The format of the report is to be as follows: o Typed, double spaced, Times New Roman font (size 12), one inch margins on all sides, APA format. o Type the question followed by your answer to the question. The 5 Steps to Capital Budgeting Here are the 5 most important steps. Capital budgeting is a multi-step process businesses use to determine how worthwhile a project or investment will be.

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Describe the four (4) steps of capital budgeting analysis.

5 describe the four 4 steps of capital budgeting analysis

1 Answer to Explain the four steps in capital budgeting financial analysis. - » Explain the four steps in capital budgeting financial analysis.

Following are the steps for capital budgeting analysis. Describe The Four 4 Steps Of Capital Budgeting Analysis Essays and Term Papers Search Results for 'describe the four 4 steps of capital budgeting analysis' Financial Ratios, Growth Analysis, Cost Of Capital, Capital Structure, & Capital Budgeting Analysis For Starbucks Corp.

Process of Capital Budgeting Capital budgeting is perhaps the most important decision for a financial manager. Since it involves buying expensive assets for long-term use, capital budgeting decisions may have a role to play in the future success of the company.

The Basic Steps of Capital Budgeting - Financial Web


Generous. Boisterous. Noisy.

That’s the description Giles Fraser used when writing about what was lost in the English Reformation.

Rod Dreher learned the wrong lesson from Benedict.

Dreher’s Benedictine option rightly critiques the consumerism inherent both in modern religiosity and in American culture, but he supplants it with his own rigorous, protestant, self-righteous, judgmental moralism that could not be farther than the world the Benedictines inhabited.

“A religion of inwardness, devoid of external pegs or props. Sitting in an empty room, mid the ruins of smashed statues, in silence, doing nothing.” Except judging gay people and women, Inwardly sanctified and horrifyingly self abusive and judgmental.

Or an ordered and practical Christianity, built on the liturgical rhythms of the church and centred on the Mass— inclusive, noisy, generous and non-judgmental. “boisterous God-infused praxis,”

I’ll take the noisy, generous Benedict. Not the imaginary, self-righteous one.


Suppose I want to construct a gravitational wave as a coherent sum of many gravitons. It's easy to think of what the frequency distribution of the gravitons should be, as all the LIGO discoveries more or less directly report this. But what would the number distribution of the gravitational wave field be? Would it be a coherent state, like a laser? A squeezed state? Something else?

  • $\begingroup$ Coherence and frequency distribution are both classical concepts, so I think the answer to this part is fairly trivial. For example, electromagnetic waves can be coherent or incoherent, and so can gravitational waves. Classically, the only difference between an electromagnetic wave and a gravitational wave is that they have different polarization properties. The quantum-mechanical issues would arise with respect to the concepts of number distribution and squeezed coherent states, which are quantum concepts (in that latter case, this is based only on my reading of Wikipedia). $\endgroup$ – Ben Crowell Oct 19 '18 at 2:25
  • $\begingroup$ Re particle number, there are straightforward arguments to the effect that the number of quanta should be observer-dependent. E.g., an accelerating observer in Minkowski space sees an event horizon, and this event horizon probably emits Hawking radiation. But this is (AFAICT as a nonspecialist) somewhat weird and controversial, which suggests that maybe we need a real theory of quantum gravity (which we don't have) in order to be sure we understand it. $\endgroup$ – Ben Crowell Oct 19 '18 at 2:30
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ you also get a difference because classical e&m waves obey the superposition principle, but gravitational waves do not $\endgroup$ – Jerry Schirmer Oct 19 '18 at 4:27
  • $\begingroup$ @JerrySchirmer gravitons assume that gravity is quantized, quantization has inherently the superposition principle for the addition of wave functions. $\endgroup$ – anna v Oct 19 '18 at 4:39
  • $\begingroup$ Have a look at how quantum field theory can be shown to build up classical fields here motls.blogspot.com/2011/11/… . $\endgroup$ – anna v Oct 19 '18 at 4:40

Hypothesizing the existence of gravitons means that one has quantized gravity, and can describe it in quantum field theory as acting similar to all other gauge bosons in building up the classical analogue field. How photons build up the classical electromagnetic light in quantum field theory is outlined here and analogously the classical gravitational wave should be shown to evolve from gravitons, once gravity is definitively quantized. At present there are only effective field theories and thus guesses .

Classical is built up by the quantum underlying level by superposition of the wavefunctions of the quantum mechanical solution. The wavefunctions are complex functions and adding them up will display interference effects even though there are no interactions, just from the structure of the ensemble of photons ( or gravitons in this case).

That this is true for photons can be seen in the interference effects of laser beams, even though there are no interactions of the photons. This MIT video (there is a bunch of videos) is instructive. It demonstrates the effect of boundary and initial conditions, on how the photons superpose so as to generate a coherent beam.

If you watched the laser video, you would understand the importance of the boundary conditions imposed on the beams. It is not possible to generate a single frequency, within the heisenberg uncertainty, gravitational field . The superposition principle will apply for all the spectrum of frequencies generated, for example by the annihilation of the two black holes into one at LIGO, and an incoherent beam will arrive with a frequency spectrum analogous to the incoherent beam of light hitting us from the sun. It will be mathematically more complicated, as graviton-graviton interactions are there , but the gravitational coupling is so very weak that it should not contribute in spoiling the above description. ( after all photon photon higher level interactions also exist, but the effect is too small to affect the light behavior in laser experiments or the sunlight).

Of course one must wait for a definitive quantization of gravity before accepting gravitons as more than hypothetical useful approximations.

  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer, but I specifically was not looking for discussion of the frequency distribution & uncertainty of the waves (or the interference of waves). The LIGO papers directly report the strain as a function of time, finding the frequency is trivial. I was wondering if anything concrete could be said about what the graviton number state (or fock state) of the wave would be. $\endgroup$ – aquirdturtle Oct 21 '18 at 21:02

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negative equity car lease

It can be difficult to get rid of a car with negative equity, but there are debt into a new loan but don't want the commitment of a car, consider taking on a lease. Nov 14, Thinking of trading car in, using cash to pay towards financed amount and rolling the balance into a lease just to get out of it. Any thoughts?. I see people wanting to get out of negative equity with their car, whether it's $3k or $9k, by the use of leasing, but they aren't worried about having a larger. Negative equity car lease

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Another way discount jordans which negative equity affects a chapters weekend code lease ricola drops coupons if you are already in a hobby lobby layaway and want to end it before the normal end date. Sorry to hear of the issue. The Highlander has aboutmiles and in good condition. A 27 year old car that would sell for that much?

In fact, in order to trade, the negative when buying tableware why is open stock an advantage balance, after burger king coupons value, must somehow be paid. Having a large amount of negative equity can easily make a new lease deal impractical and unaffordable. Another way in which negative equity affects a car lease is if you are already in a lease and want to end it before the normal end date.

Negative equity auto loan payment calculator

You are upside-down on a car loan when you owe more than your vehicle is worth. It happens a lot, but there are ways to limit the long-term damage it will do to your finances. They owe more than the car is worth as soon as they sign the contract. The fact is that increasing numbers of people have car loans that leave them upside-down. The same thing happens at used car lots.

CarProUSA does not broker, sell, or lease vehicles. How to make your own stain remover vehicles shown on this website are offered for sale by licensed motor vehicle dealers, unless where otherwise noted. Used vehicles are subject to prior sale. We strive to update our website in a timely manner however CarProUSA cannot guarantee that the inventory shown will be available at the dealership.

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What to do if You Have Negative Equity

Negative equity on an auto loan means popular toys christmas 2019 the buyer owes more than the vehicle is worth. Since vehicles often depreciate faster than they are paid for, vehicle buyers often go through a period of negative equity at the beginning of their loan term. Increasing your payment amount will shorten the amount of time you spend with negative equity.

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Caricature/Cartoon – Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Dictator, the Devil & the Devil!

Who is more evil – Adolf Hitler or the Devil?

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Dictator, the Designer of the Holocaust and the Devil - News from Hell.

The Devil Abdicates…

Adolf Hitler’s Biography

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Dictator and the chief perpetrator of the Holocaust, was born on April 20th, 1889 (a black day that year) in Austria. Hitler didn’t do well in school and while his father dreamed of his becoming a government employee, he wanted to be an artist. He tried getting into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, but the selectors out there weren’t much impressed by his drawings. They did suggest that he could try becoming an architect (his architectural drawings were indeed better than the other stuff he did.) Unfortunately, his qualifications fell short of what was required for studying architecture.

To cut a long story short, Hitler worked on some menial jobs for a while and then he joined the German Army. It was in 1919, when a 32-year-old Hitler discovered that he has the gift of gab. Hitler’ audience often comprised rowdy thugs, but they gave him the confidence to launch the National Socialist German Workers or NAZI Party in 1920. In 1932, the NAZI party was democratically elected as the largest party, and in 1933, Hitler gained complete control of the party.

Then began the worst nightmare the world had ever seen. By 1945, the Nazis had systematically murdered 17 Million Civilians including 6 Million Jews. Other communities that were targeted by the hatred-driven Nazis were Poles, Russians, Romanis, and even people who were disabled. The atrocities that were committed by Hitler’s satanic army remain unparalleled in history. If there truly were a devil, he would bow to Hitler and abdicate in his favor!

Adolf Hitler’s Hatred for the Jews:

It’s often argued that Hitler had Jewish blood in his veins. His grandmother worked in a rich Jewish household and conceived Alois, Hitler’s father, through the one of the male members of this family. Five years after giving birth to Alois, she married Johann Georg Hiedler (or Hitler) who gave Alois his name. There’s a possibility that Hitler’s hatred for Jews was a lot personal than he ever accepted it to be.

Adolf Hitler’s Love Life:

Hitler fell in love with an Army Officer’s daughter when he was young, but her never had the nerve to speak to her. He did follow her around for a long time. In 1929, he met Eva Braun, a 17-year old starry-eyed teenager. Hitler didn’t marry Eva until two days before they committed suicide together in 1945.

Adolf Hitler’s Art:

Going by what sells in the name of art today, Hitler was a better artist than most. Unfortunately for the world, he was a better orator. In addition to being a great orator, Hitler was a man with no conscience nor empathy for his fellow beings – yet he was passionate about whatever he did – even when he killed – he killed with passion. You can see Hitler’s artwork here. (Do you notice the irony? Had this man become an artist and had been able to sell his drawings, he probably wouldn’t have become a butcher; yet, because he became the dirtiest butcher in the world, his drawings now sell!)

Adolf Hitler’s Dogs:

Hitler loved dogs – especially German Shepherds. Eva Braun once commented upon Hitler being more in love with his dogs than with her.

Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf:

Mein Kampf or My Struggle is Hitler’s autobiography. When you read this book, you experience the madness setting in. The first volume makes some sense while the second, none.
Mein Kampf is available here.

The Holocaust:

The mass extermination of Jews and other non-Germans by the State of Germany is called the Holocaust (it is also called the Final Solution). The extermination was carried out in phases. Men, women, and children were put into gas-chambers under the pretext of a shower, and were gassed. Children were often used as guinea-pigs for devilish experiments. People who were identified were dispatched to the Nazi concentration camps that had the motto “Work will set you free” on their gates. Auschwitz is said to be the worst of all the concentration camps.

When Hitler arrived in Hell, he must’ve put the Devil in a gas-chamber (or at least on a leash) and ruled Hell…after all, who could be more evil than Adolf Hitler?

What other Bloggers are saying about Adolf Hitler?